Iliad subsidiary Free Mobile announced that it has agreed to start phasing out domestic roaming on Orange's network for its customers from the start of 2017. It has relied on Orange for national roaming since it first launched mobile services in 2012. The initial 2G/3G contract runs until 2020, but the operators agreed an annex that will see Free gradually ending roaming from early next year.
The agreement which was pushed ahead by French telecoms regulator, ARCEP was reached after several months of negotiations between the two operators. Free Mobile said that its own mobile network has reached 84.5 percent coverage on 3G and 68.3 percent with 4G.
